Sign My Petition

Right now, I'm reading the book Eat, Pray, Love. At one point fairly early on in the book, the main character/narrator talks about how uncomfortable she is asking God for anything personal. As a Jew who is used to praying regularly and includes personal prayers all the time, it wasn't her trouble with petitionary prayer that struck me. It was her friend's response. She suggested framing the prayer as an actual petition, and encouraged the author to then think of all of the people who would sign her petition. What a wonderful way to feel the power of your support network and your community. What is it that you really want from God right now? Who would support your petition?

a belated Purim anecdote

Why did Meital want to be Queen Vashti?

Because he said "no" and didn't go to the party. Why didn't she go to the party? She had chicken pox.

And why Peter Pan?

He wears green and flies.

And Meital is obsessed with green....

Finally, some Purim pictures

Queen Vashti

and Peter Pan

Welcome, Tiger Lilly

Ok, so it's been a few weeks. I've been busy. In addition to my schoolwork and job, we've had some pretty major changes around our house.

Last weekend, Meital's Bubbe sent her a toddler bed. We used the opportunity of setting up her new bed to completely remodal her room. If I were more industrious, I would post pictures of this new big girl room here, but I haven;t taken the pictures off the camera yet. If you're on our email list, you will see the new look in the next set of photos we send out. Suffice it to say, in addition to her toddler bed, Meital has a new set of shelves, so we were able to completely reorganize her toys. Last Sunday was a day of chaos, but the room looks great! I think the new set-up gives her more space to play in the middle of the floor, and it's been easier to keep clean so far.

The latest major change came today.
We welcome a new member of our family.
At today's Purim carnival, Meital became the proud owner of Tiger Lilly (her choice of names, have I mentioned that my daughter is obsessed with Peter Pan?), a white and orange goldfish. Now let's just hope we can keep Tiger Lilly alive for a while....

Music, please!

Every once in a while, Meital requests music, especially if we are in the car.
Yesterday, out of the blue, she started talking about Reb Mimi. She said that Reb Mimi prays and sings, and she asked specifically to listen to Reb Mimi. I'm not sure how she even knew that I have a tape with Reb Mimi singing that we recorded ourselves the summer that I did Lishma! This evening, too, she wanted to listen to Reb Mimi all evening! What great taste in music!

The Kashrut of Dinosaurs

A classmate of mine sent the following question around to our student list:

>Dear Chevre,
>It's 7:15 am in our house and a question of pressing halachic concern was brought up by Reb Levi.
>Are dinosaurs kosher?


Now, it must be noted that Reb Levi is three years old.

A variety of people responded with varying degrees of seriousness to the question (some perhaps not realizing the age of said questioner)

My favorite response (aside from my own) said:

>I say they are definitely Kosher as long as they come like this picture.

Another person brought up unicorns, and in response I said:

...may be true, but Meital did put unicorns on Noah's ark, and like many families, we do have at least one dinosaur, too. Dinosaurs today, however, are best described as "food not fit for a dog" or "eitz b'alma". Therefore, they would fall under the category of dvar hadash. As such, some authorities would permit eating them and others would forbid. One must also consider, however, the recent health concerns regarding items originating in China and whether said dinosaur therefore constitutes a potential danger, however minor, to health and is therefore to be forbidden under the principle of pikuach nefesh. Given that pikuach nefesh doche Shabbat, it most likely supersedes the simple kashrut concerns of dvar hadash and renders the dinosaur forbidden.

Throne Room

Meital seems to have a new favorite room in the house. ever since she figured out that she can get a prize for using her potty and keeping her underwear dry, she spends half the evening in the bathroom. It seems that she tries to go pee every two seconds until she manages to do it right and earn her prize. Only after that can she leave the bathroom for loner than a minute and play normally.